


The Peculiarly Delightful Joinings of the Semi-Colon

by PetrarchanConceit



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Anal Sex, English Grammar is arbitrarily constructed, Even more Satire, Fellatio, Grammar and Hegemony, I think I understand this tagging thing now, I'm serious about that one, M/M, More Satire, Never allow a Shakespearean free license to play with words, Postmodern Self-referentiality, Satire, Sexy Semi-colons, The Educated Will, We will surely become menaces, You make them up, of the 18th-century ruling class, otherwise..., to reflect the speech patterns, which means the text will refer to itself as such
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26400091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrarchanConceit/pseuds/PetrarchanConceit
Summary: "Semi-colons!" interrupted Estinien, snarling, "I hate those thrice-damned, Fury-fucked, bloody little buggers.  They even look sinister: they have tails, Aymeric.  Tails!"
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 29
Kudos: 42





	The Peculiarly Delightful Joinings of the Semi-Colon

**Author's Note:**

> So my daughter and her friends write Good Omens smutfics. Tons of them. Seriously, I think she alone has written like 134 of them; I don't know whether to be shocked or proud. Anyway, two of her smutfic writing compatriots have headed off to university and they are worried about composition class, mostly about sentence-level stuff, grammar and the like. They asked for my advice. I decided to give it in smutfic form. I mean grammar can be so...dry. I thought it might be more fun this way. As my husband likes to remind me, however, I'm not very good at "fun." Adrenaline, yes. Fun not so much. So if my idea of fun is slightly askew, I apologize. I really, really don't mean to cause offense.  
> And to my dear, sweet gabriphales, I hope this helps your friends be more at ease, or at least makes them laugh. If it doesn't, just have them send their drafts to me and I'll proof them myself. I mean, seriously, precise grammar is far, far less important in college writing than developing a mastery of deep critical analysis, but I know some profs can be jerks about it. We call them "Conan the Grammarians" and laugh.

"They'll use this, Aymeric," Estinien said, gesturing to the open book in the other man's lap. "Two-hundred, three-hundred years hence even, they will still be using this to make people feel small. People like me, Aymeric."

  
"The intent is merely for clarity, for ease of communication, to enable the exchange of ideas necessary to maintaining a working republic," replied his dark-haired lover, turning over a page in the manual that proposed to standardize the grammar that governed both spoken and written Isgardian.

  
"Still..." started Estinien, turning to face his bedmate, propping his head up on his arm in the pillows. "Why should students three hundred years hence have their words, their whispers, the very thoughts in their heads shaped according to the rhythms of the High Houses? Why should their way of speaking and writing be the one we all emulate? Last time I looked the nobility tended more toward obfuscation than clarity," he continued, becoming more heated the more he thought about yet another imposition of the highborn on the regular folk of Coerthas.

  
"Hmm, can't argue with that, love," said Aymeric, closing the book and placing it on his nightstand, before sliding down underneath the sheets to face his lover. They were both stripped bare, able now at this point in their relationship to tolerate skin against skin without immediately rushing toward the inevitable joining. Assured now that Estinien was going to be in his bed more often than not, and that he was a pretty darned sure thing once he was there, Aymeric could afford to relax and take his time. The pair of them, finally, could just enjoy being naked together, enjoy the easy intimacy that such closeness fostered. And if in that space ideas were exchanged as much as...other things, it only served to solidify their bond.

  
"Still, there's a neatness to it, everything centered on the independent clause -- the subject and the verb, the thing itself and what that thing is either doing or being, the complete and wholly contained thought," Aymeric continued, reaching out to lazily drag a single finger down the long slope of Estinien's pale throat.

  
"What say you do the doing and I'll do the being?" smirked Estinien, scooting closer to Aymeric, pressing chest to naked chest.

  
"To love and be loved, then?" asked the knight.

  
"To fuck and be fucked, I think I'd prefer tonight," replied his dragoon.

  
"Either way, it's two clauses coming together...," started Aymeric.

  
"I certainly hope so, and soon if you don't mind," interrupted his silver-haired lover.

  
Aymeric affectionately tapped the very tip of Estinien's nose. "But therein lies the problem, love: it's when two clauses come together...sometimes even more than two," he smirked in return as Estinien narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the thought, "that clarity of meaning, and, thus, strength of argument, rests in the ability of the writer to clearly signal how these clauses meld to form a complete thought. The goal is the independent clause, of course, the complete sentence," continued Aymeric, his brow furrowing in thought, "but such sentences, particularly those of the more complex variety, often come with subordinate clauses attached -- sentences that aren't sentences at all because they lack either subject or verb, but still contain information vital to the expression of the complete thought, and, thus, must be somehow linked to the independent clause they modify."

  
"I admit, my love," said Estinien, gradually easing Aymeric to his back and spreading his legs wide so that the dragoon could position himself kneeling between them, "that you have completely and utterly lost me."

  
"A lesson, then, dearest," offered Aymeric. Estinien looked up from his position between his lord's legs and cocked an eyebrow, doubtful. "I promise I'll make it worth your while, Estinien," Aymeric continued in a teasing voice.

  
"Fine," answered the dragoon, sighing and rolling his eyes.

  
"Let me start, then, with what I think will be the three most common grammatical errors committed by students newly admitted to the institutions of higher learning soon to be founded in Ishgard proper and, hopefully, throughout Coerthas. And I'm serious about that, Estinien," Aymeric said, a steeled expression briefly taking over his features. "The scholasticate needs to go and a university erected in its place, and not just a university, but the entire educational apparatus that precedes it. A government that is steered by the will of the people, such as is our new republic, must ensure that the people's will is an educated one. We must start with the children, teach them how to use reason to make choices that are in the best interest of everyone, because without the _Educated Will_ firmly erected and in place, all republics eventually fail."

  
"You're going full-paladin on me again, Blue," said Estinien, his eyes soft, "and while I would like to argue that I don't think possession of a university degree an absolute condition of being considered educated -- several of the most cunning warriors I know have never had the opportunity to partake of so-called higher learning -- I'm a little more preoccupied, at the moment, with things other than an educated populace being _firmly erected_ and _set in their proper place_ ," he said, drawing his fingers lightly up Aymeric's thickening length as he emphasized the words.

  
"Ah, right," said Aymeric. "I digress -- back to our lesson."

  
"The three most common errors, then?" asked Estinien.

  
Aymeric nodded. Then he darted up, snake-like, grabbing Estinien underneath his arms and wresting him onto his back. Quickly, before the other man could react, Aymeric used his strong swordman's hands to push the dragoon's thighs wide as they could possibly go, which was wide indeed, because Estinien could perform a full straddle split, a feat he occasionally demonstrated astride his dark-haired lover. Fully reversed, Aymeric now took his place between his love's open legs.

  
"The **Run-On Sentence** , then," Aymeric began, nonplussed. Estinien just blinked at him. "Some students, I believe, operate under the assumption that these are merely over-long sentences," said Aymeric, rising to stand on his knees now, so that Estinien could fully observe how he slowly and smoothly slicked up his own _over-long proposition_ with oil he pulled from some hidden nook. "This couldn't be further from the truth. A sentence can stretch half a page," he paused to arch his own back, "a full page e'en, and still be correct." Stretching even further, Aymeric pushed his cock into his oiled palm, closing his eyes and dropping his head back, thoroughly pleasured. Estinien all but whimpered at the sight.

  
"A run-on sentence, then" the Lord Commander sighed out, reluctantly straightening to continue, "is merely two independent clauses -- two complete sentences that can stand on their own -- slammed together without any intervening punctuation. For example:

 _The dark-haired lord dropped like a rock to engulf his lover's length full in his mouth brooking no resistance from the silver-haired man, he held his hips down in a bruising grip._ "

Aymeric demonstrated.

  
Estinien bucked into his throat. "Fury-fucking hells, Aymeric!" he shouted.

  
Digressing yet again, Aymeric sucked the dragoon's cockhead so hard against the roof of his mouth that Estinien felt suddenly light-headed from all the blood rushing to his nethers. But just as the silver-haired man began to see shadows creeping into the edges of his vision, his lord ceased his ministrations, drew his tongue along the underside of his lover's penis, and sat back on his own haunches.

  
"There are two separate thoughts expressed there -- the taking and the refusal to recognize resistance. And having them crowded together like that makes it difficult for the reader to comprehend either. But I know of at least three ways to fix them," he continued, absently stroking Estinien's absolute rigidity.

  
"Fix _this_ ," groaned the silver-haired man, thrusting said rigidity up into Aymeric's hand, arching his pelvis ilms off the bed in his increasing desperation.

  
"Lessons first," Aymeric smirked at his dragoon, "then love."

  
"They seem coterminous at the moment," Estinien strained, still arching and stretching into Aymeric's hand.

  
"First," Aymeric continued, ignoring him, "one can simply use a period, a full-stop, to separate the thoughts into two complete sentences, thusly:

 _The dark-haired lord dropped like a rock to engulf his lover's length full in his mouth. Brooking no resistance from the silver-haired man, he held his hips down in a bruising grip._ "

Aymeric paused for an expected interruption that did not come; Estinien seemed to be trying at least to listen and be patient.

  
"Second, one can use a coordinating conjunction, helpful little words like _and_ , _but_ , and _or_ , to join the two sentences in a way that provides more clarity:

 _The dark-haired lord dropped like a rock to engulf his lover's length full in his mouth, and, brooking no resistance from the silver-haired man, he held his hips down in a bruising grip_."

"And, thirdly, well, there's the semi-colon..."

  
"Semi-colons!" interrupted Estinien, snarling, "I hate those thrice-damned, Fury-fucked, bloody little buggers. They even look sinister: they have tails, Aymeric. Tails!"

  
"Ah," answered Aymeric, his voice going softer to soothe. "But they're really rather useful, just, perhaps, misunderstood," he continued thoughtfully, "like some former Azure Dragoons I know." He brushed the back of his knuckles softly across Estinien's lips before continuing.

  
"A semi-colon's primary purpose," he began, "is to separate two independent clauses -- two complete sentences that each have a subject and a verb -- that are too closely connected to warrant the complete separation of the period." Here, Aymeric bent down again over Estinien, his lips pausing a huffed breath away from the other man's fat erection. "It's a pause," he whispered now, lips smoothing around Estinien's very tip, a gentle, mouthing kiss to his cock, "somewhere between the breath of a comma and the full-stop of a period:

 _The dark-haired lord dropped like a rock to engulf his lover's length full in his mouth; brooking no resistance from the silver-haired man, he held his hips down in a bruising grip_."

"I'm beginning to understand their appeal," gasped out Estinien, still painfully rigid. Thus, his face turned nearly purple, his eyes widening in nigh apoplectic frustration, when Aymeric straightened to sit back again. Estinien whined, his back bridging high, desperate for his lord.

  
"Pray forgive me, my love," Aymeric answered, "but with Run-On sentences explained, and the three most common ways to fix them, I must needs turn to my next topic, and this one, this next one, is probably the single biggest mistake made by both experienced and inexperienced writers alike. I must bring my thoughts to bear on how best to explain it," he continued, creasing his brow in concentration. Taking a breath, he exhaled slowly.

  
"The **Sentence Fragment** ," he said finally. "A Sentence Fragment is, essentially, a dependent clause, a subordinate clause: it lacks either a subject or a verb, or sometimes even both. And, of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with subordinate clauses -- as long as one doesn't make them stand in for independent clauses by capitalizing their beginnings and slapping periods at the ends of them. Again," he said, pausing to run his fingers along Estinien's jaw-line before lovingly smoothing a strand of his silver hair behind his tapered ear, "we require an example:

 _First, there was the light touch, upon his strong jaw, of Estinien's besotted dark-haired love. Then a smoothing of his silver-coloured hair behind his long tapered ear_."

"Sounds fine to me," Estinien sighed out dreamily, momentarily forgetting his more pressing needs --actually more perpendicularly straining -- as he stared into the softened eyes that were all-but-melting with love for him.

  
"Well, in fiction, in romance or erotica, where you would most likely find such a set of clauses, it _is_ fine. Sentence fragments, used judiciously so as not to make the flow of the prose too chopped and broken, are actually fine in fiction -- especially in dialogue; after all, no one actually _speaks_ in complete sentences all the time," Aymeric asserted. "But in expository prose, where one is trying to either explain something or to construct an argument either in support of or against a particular position, sentence fragments are often confusing and distracting," he continued.

  
"The second of the pair of clauses in our example is a fragment. It lacks both subject _and_ verb. Fortunately, the proposed grammar suggests several ways to link fragments like this with the independent clauses they modify," Aymeric paused for a moment and frowned, as if trying to remember the possible remedies, before resuming.

  
"One can actually make up the deficiency of the fragment, supplying its missing subject or verb and, thus, turning it into a complete sentence:

 _First, there was the light touch, upon his strong jaw, of Estinien's besotted dark-haired lover. Then his lord smoothed a strand of his silver-coloured hair behind his long tapered ear_."

"Or one can simply use a comma to join a subordinate clause to an independent:

 _First, there was the light touch, upon his strong jaw, of Estinien's besotted dark-haired lover, then a smoothing of his silver-coloured hair behind his long tapered ear_."

"One could even try a comma with a subordinating conjunction -- words like 'because' and 'though' -- the cousins of the coordinating conjunctions:

 _First, there was the light touch, upon his strong jaw, of Estinien's besotted dark-haired lover, after which followed a smoothing of his silver-coloured hair behind his long tapered ear_."

"Hmm, still sounds nice," said Estinien, making a soft pleased sound.

  
Aymeric reached for him again, touching his stubbled jaw, the tiny silver hairs catching in the dim candlelight, before stretching up to stroke his fingers along the strands he'd previously smoothed behind the dragoon's right ear. He paused yet again, tired of talking, nearly forgetting why he'd started this game in the first place as he stared at Estinien's flushed-pink face. After all these years, the man still had no idea how very beautiful he was, and seeing all that beauty, all that still-fresh loveliness that was _his_ , belonged to _him_ , still stunned the Lord Speaker into silence on occasion.  
He leaned forward to hover over his dragoon, his chest above the other man's, then bent to kiss him, pressing his firm, full lips to Estinien's, and indulging, for several long moments, in the feeling of the other man's lips pressing back, before finally using the tip of his tongue to breach inside.

  
"Ohhh..." sighed the dragoon, his erection a steel rod, certainly nigh painful to Estinien himself, as engorged as it was, but also inflicting no small amount of discomfort on his lord as the silver-haired man insisted on thrusting it upwards to continually butt against Aymeric's hard stomach. The knight sighed in bewildered amusement. Then he decided to bring their lesson to an end.

  
"Finally," Aymeric said, his lips still against Estinien's, "there's the **Comma Splice**."

  
"Sounds...ah...painful," gasped Estinien, his breath short.

  
"Much less painful than your unceasing insistence on poking me with that oversized... _weapon_ of yours," rejoined his lord, pausing a beat to shake his head before resuming. "Comma splices are silly," he said, that last word spilling from his mouth seeming terribly incongruent with the entirely too-serious, too piercing and intent way his gaze suddenly focused on Estinien. "Why I don't fully understand what's so very offensive about them, I foresee that in the future there will be both professors and teachers alike who will be nigh frothing at their mouths to catch this mistake with their pens...um, uh, quills, I mean, their quills."

  
Mimicking the near frenzy of these future so-called educators, Aymeric abruptly slid his arms under Estinien's knees, wrapping his hands around the front of each thigh to grip fingers into the dragoon's quads, neatly trimmed nails digging in, marking. Then he yanked his lover forward so that Estinien's pelvis rested, tilting slightly upwards, on Aymeric's own kneeling thighs. "Our final example then," Aymeric breathed out:

 _His lord could abide no longer, he slid deep inside in one smooth motion_."

"One smooth motion, huh?" Estinien barely managed to hiss out, stretching and arching and begging for Aymeric's cock inside him. "Why must it always be smooth?"

  
"Would you prefer it otherwise," replied his lover archly, a merciless look descending over his features as he took the dragoon, if not at his word, certainly at his implication. With no further pause, he thrust deep inside Estinien.

  
"Ah, Sweet Fury, Aymeric!" the silver-haired man whimpered.

  
"Now, my dearest," commanded the dark-haired man, "you will take heed of the end of our lesson." His voice had dropped to the lowest pitch at which Estinien had yet to hear it, and it was firm, nearly harshly so, filled with an iron compulsion the dragoon knew he could attempt to resist only at his own peril.

  
"A comma splice is simply two independent clauses-- two complete sentences -- joined by the apparently inadequate punctuation represented by a comma." While his gaze and the commanding tone of his voice were yet relentless, Aymeric had completely stilled himself for a brief space of time after his initial deep thrust, allowing Estinien's body the moments it needed to fully commit to its compliance. He continued to fill those moments with words.

  
"And, of course, as with the run-on sentence, one can always simply separate the two independent clauses in a comma splice by the full-stop of a period, making them into separate sentences," Aymeric continued, his voice still pitched deep, demanding Estinien's attention. "Or one could use a coordinating conjunction again. But, honestly, it is really in the case of the comma splice, where two sentences are already so closely related that we don't necessarily think to separate them adequately, that the semi-colon truly shines."

  
"The semi-colon?" Estinien asked, breathless, pushing slightly upwards, tentatively urging his lord into a second thrust.

  
"The semi-colon," Aymeric replied, his gaze darker yet, predatory. "As in, _'[h]is lord could abide no longer; he thrust deep inside in one smooth motion._ '" The now-dark knight demonstrated once again.

  
"Oh, gods, 'meric, you're so... _hard_ ," the dragoon moaned. "You feel so _bloody_... _fucking_... _good_ inside me," he continued, a gasping pant between each word.

  
Grammar lesson complete, Aymeric placed his own clasped hands underneath the small of Estinien's back, lifting him slightly to urge the dragoon further into his lap. Estinien answered by clutching Aymeric's ribs tight between his full thighs and wrapping his lower legs behind his lord's narrow, sinuous waist, clasping his elegant, perfectly arched feet at the ankles.

  
He arched high to meet his dark lord's now wildly hammering thrusts, so that his shoulders, neck, and the back of his head remained his only point of contact with the bed, his weight mostly supported in Aymeric's strong arms. Estinien took advantage of his knight's strength -- a strength that, relieving him of the necessity of using his own arms to bear weight, allowed him the use of them -- by setting his own hands to the task of stroking himself in sync with Aymeric's relentless rhythm.

  
"Harder, 'meric," Estinien keened. " _More_ ," he demanded," ever the more vocal of them in his pleasure.

  
" _Everything_ , my only love," the dark-haired knight responded, clutching his arms tighter around Estinien, holding him firmly in place while he pistoned him nigh to oblivion, hip bones thrashing fast into pelvic.

  
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh, 'meric!" Estinien shouted as he climaxed, grinding himself hard against his knight's buried shaft. Ever one to gain his most exquisite pleasure in the pleasing, Aymeric followed with a low call of his lover's name strained through the sudden tightness of his throat.

  
A moment.

  
Then, to the surprise of every woman across every world everywhere -- or at least all of us who've ever had sex with a man -- not just one, but _two_ post-coital men managed to stay awake for a longer time than was required for them to roll apart from one another and collapse, still shaking, on the bed. I blame narrative convenience.

  
"'stinian," Aymeric murmured groggily. He sat up purposefully, then, to avoid encroaching slumber. "Did I hurt you, 'stinian?" he asked softly, concerned.

  
"I'm fine, 'meric," the dragoon said, smiling at him from the pillows. It was such a new thing, still, to see Estinien's smile. "And I'll even admit to a certain growing fondness for the semi-colon." He looped his arms behind his head. "At least I now know their purpose isn't to willfully torment," he continued.

  
Aymeric laughed; then he sighed, his face thoughtful. "It's not fair, I know...you're right, I mean, of course." He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "It's not fair that those who still hold a disproportionate amount of power use that power to force our very words to mirror their own." He sighed again. "No one should ever be made to feel small, ashamed, diminished because his or her patterns of speech, expressions, rhythms and words don't match those of a ruling elite, especially -- in regard to those future Ishgardians who will be subject to this standardized grammar -- those of a ruling elite long dead."

  
"You take too much on yourself, 'meric" Estinien said reaching out a comforting hand to rest on his lover's arm. "Uneasy lies the head..." he began.

  
"I wear no crown, Estinien," Aymeric snapped sharply, interrupting. "Nor would I ever desire such a thing." He sighed again, a particularly long and drawn-out one this time. "Forgive me, my love," he said, taking Estinien's hand from his arm and bending to press his lips to the back of it with the delicacy of the perfect courtier that he was. "But the excuse that it's all for clarity of communication is a poor one, and I know it" he said, continuing to hold the dragoon's fingers lightly in his hand as he shook his head, still troubled.

  
"And what of that one?" said Estinien, gesturing to the heavier, thicker tome also currently in residence upon Aymeric's bedside stand, trying to distract him from his internal self-flagellation.

  
"Ah," the knight nodded, "the proposed dictionary."

  
"So meaning is to be standardized as well, even spelling?" asked Estinien, wrinkling his nose up in distaste. It was such as decidedly whimsical expression on a face that was most often devoted to expressing a somber seriousness, that Aymeric couldn't help but grin.

  
"Well, Estinien," he started, his eyes smiling as he anticipated the effect his teasing would have on the dragoon, "how would you feel if, in the numerous forthcoming recordings of your illustrious deeds as the last true Azure Dragoon of Ishgard, you were remembered as not only Estinien Wyrmblood, but also Etienne Wormsblud, Esteben Drakedrub, and Stephen Dragonsguts? Sometimes standardization can be a good thing," he laughed.

  
"Truly, I'd prefer none of those," Estinien returned, the corners of both his eyes and mouth dropping to droop his face into a frown. "I'm not... proud of all the draconic lives I took in service to a lie. I would not wish to be remembered as a murderer," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper as his gaze dropped to his lap.

  
"'stinian," Aymeric said, finally releasing his hand and moving closer to comfort. Estinien stopped him, pressing that same hand he'd just relinquished against the knight's chest.

  
"I'd prefer to be remembered, if it be necessary I be remembered at all, only for the role I hope to occupy from now until I stop breathing," he said, remembering now to draw a deep breath, as though to convince himself that he had not already abandoned his ability to do so. He looked Aymeric straight in his painfully brilliant blue eyes. "If I must be remembered," he said, "I would prefer it be as Estinien de Borel -- the consort, partner...husband, e'en, of the man who ended the Dragonsong War."

  
"Estinien!" Aymeric nearly bleated out in surprise, his voice pitching the highest Estinien had ever heard it, wavering, trembling, cracking completely as it caught on the second syllable of the other man's name. Tears crowded his lover's face from the Lord Commander's view, spilling down his cheeks as he breached the barrier of Estinien's still opposing hand and took up his sweet, sweet Silver in his arms. "And for that blessed potentiality to have a chance of ever occuring, we need clarity," he said, "we need communication. We need Ishgardians, present and future, to not only see reason, to recognize and speak and write it, but to _choose_ reason as well."

  
"The _Educated Will_ , again," muttered Estinian as he drew Aymeric back down to the pillows.

  
"The _Educated Will_ ," Aymeric nodded, sinking into down and warmth and his lover's soft lips as he kissed him, heart to naked heart.


End file.
